My Facebook feed is filled with article after article on fat and how we shouldn’t be scared of it, especially the saturated kind. The argument varies but follows along the logic of: we erroneously became scared of fat based on some bad science that accused saturated fat of causing heart disease. fat was then removed from many processed foods and replaced with more sugar to help the food become more palatable. Then we ate too much sugar and carbohydrates for the next couple decades and now we’re all fat and sick. Sound about right? In some ways, although it’s oversimplified, I have some buy-in to that argument. However, in this post I would like to briefly discuss the high fat situation and hopefully help some of my three readers gain some perspective. ​

When I discuss fat, at least in this post, I am referring to saturated fat, to keep it simple, fat that is solid at room temperature. Picture the fat on a steak. Saturated fat doesn’t always have to come from animal products; with coconut oil and avocados coming to mind from the plant kingdom. Now, the question is, is higher fat better for our health or weight management goals? As with every other facet of nutrition, it’s not as easy of an answer as we would like it to be. ​

"What are my goals and what am I doing?

To answer the question, I think you must first ask a question. That question is “what are my goals, and what am I doing?” Many Americans struggle with weight loss, and so, are looking for the right foods to eat to help reach the goal of weight loss. I am not a proponent of calories in calories out for weight loss and I don’t believe all calories are created equally. For an exhaustive look at this subject, I suggest Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. That being said, I believe you can only take this argument so far before it cracks. Basically, calories in, calories out states that if you don’t burn off as many calories as you ingest, you will gain weight. Taubes argues that it’s not the quantity of the calories, but the quality of the calories that matters and that eating more calories from carbohydrates will stimulate insulin, a fat storage hormone. Fat and protein have a minimal effect on insulin levels, so the idea would be to eat less calories from carbohydrates and more calories from fat and protein and don’t worry about total calories from the fat and protein. Again, this is oversimplifying the message, and I don’t totally disagree with the message. Where I feel the concept comes apart is the quantity of fat. For the most part, I don’t think the calories from fat matter as much as calories from carbohydrates. However, when we take it too far and eat large quantities of super calorie dense foods like nuts, I think it’s a mistake. Yes, when you cut carbs down, you have to bring fat up, but I feel like we’re starting to figuratively give the middle finger to conventional wisdom by purposely eating large amounts of fat to “catch up” for cutting it out over the last couple decades. ​

​The other question I alluded to is “what are your goals?” I have been doing crossfit for a couple years now and as many people know, it’s extremely physically demanding. You spend a lot of time out of breath, much like when you finish a sprint. Contrary to popular belief, this is burning very little fat. When you are exercising primarily in the glycolytic energy system, again, shorter duration, but all out effort, and unable to carry on a conversation, you are using primarily sugar and stored carbohydrate for your fuel. For exercise of longer duration, such as walking, hiking, or biking for a few miles, or basically any exercise where you can carry on a conversation, you will be burning more fat than sugar. So for the average crossfitter, shoving down piles of bacon and animal fat, you’re missing the opportunity to properly fuel yourself for training. It’s not that you should be on a low fat high carbohydrate diet of mostly plants, but eat according to what you will be doing. For instance, around your training session, keep the majority of your carbs for fueling, but the rest of the day, feel free to back off the carbs and shift to a higher fat intake.

To sum it up, eat for what you’re going to be doing. Match energy substrate for activity; higher carbs for activity that make you out of breath, higher fat for activity where you can carry on a conversation. This will bring you closer to your goals!